New reports this morning out of Western Africa about a missing plane carrying 116 people onboard. Air Algerie Flight AH5017 dropped off the radar shortly after taking off from Burkina Faso today.

Air traffic controllers lost all contact with the plane as it flew over Mali on its way to Algiers. Emergency teams are still searching for the possible crash site on the ground and French fighter jets have been dispatched to try and locate the aircraft.

The passenger list reveals that 51 of those onboard were French citizens.

Algerian officials have announced that they believe the flight has indeed crashed but where exactly it went down is still unknown.

Swiftair, the Spanish company that was leasing out this aircraft to Air Algerie, issued a statement about the missing plane, saying:

"At this moment we have emergency teams and company personnel working ‎to establish what happened and as soon as we know more details we will release new statements.”